Maria Sharapova

Being a Champion On and Off the Court

I've got a special episode for you on The School of Greatness today.

I met our guest, tennis champion Maria Sharapova, early this year, right before she got suspended from playing her favorite sport.

She and her coach Sven are fans of the show and we connected immediately when we met up in person.

Since then, Maria and I have become good friends and I have watched her handle the biggest challenge of her career – being wrongfully suspended – for eight months.

Not only has she handled this challenge with grace and positivity, she has spent her time off the courts making herself even better.

Since she just found out her suspension is off (she can play next season), we finally got to sit down to record an interview for the podcast.

“We’re not given something in life that we can’t handle.”

But we don’t just talk about tennis.

In fact, Maria is also a smart entrepreneur, public figure, brand ambassador, and awesome human being.

We cover what makes her so driven and how she lives like a normal person despite being a superstar.

I have been looking forward to sharing Maria with you for months and am happy to say the time has come in Episode 395.

“Be real. Be honest. Learn.”

Some Questions I Ask:

What are the biggest lessons you’ve learned in the past 8 months while being suspended? (11:45)
What’s normal about you? (16:50)
What’s the biggest internal difficulty you face? (19:22)
Why are you so driven to win? (38:12)
Do you have any regrets about your career? (40:05)
Do you have a visualization technique before you compete? (43:20)

In this episode, you will learn:

Why it’s worth it to keep growing even when you’re not guaranteed a future (10:20)
What Maria considers her secret strength (23:03)
The biggest lessons Maria learned about business while studying at Harvard (29:01)
How to choose how to spend your time and resources when you have so much going on (34:22)
Why boredom can be good (36:40)
Why Maria doesn’t believe balance exists (41:02)
Maria’s coach Sven answering questions about working with Maria (47:03)
Plus much more…